Journaling the Giant Webs of 2007

In 2007 I spent many hours watching, photographing, and videotaping the spiders at the giant webs around Texas, including the most famous one at Lake Tawakoni State Park. Somewhere around hour 100 I lost track of just how many hours I'd spent with these spiders. Below are the journal entries of my adventures and discoveries, full of photos, videos, and stories.

No alien spiders found in the web (September 7, 2007) — Texas A&M releases a report on the spiders collected at the web. We were surprised that there were no surprises.

Return to Lake Tawakoni Spectacular! (September 19, 2007) — I returned to Lake Tawakoni State Park and watched the web for about 15 hours over a period of 30 hours. Here are my discoveries.

Jumping spider puppet fight (September 20, 2007) — Jumping spiders were crawling all over the giant web. I caught a video of a territorial spat between two male Bronze Jumpers.

Second web reported at Wind Point Park (October 1, 2007) — While Hank Guarisco and I are at the giant web at Lake Tawakoni State Park, we learn that there's another web on the other side of the lake, so off we go. Check out my video of the clouds of midges.

Good-bye giant spider webs (October 31, 2007) — The spider webs are shrinking and the spiders are disappearing, but there are still more mysteries to make sense of.

Same spider on all the giant webs (November 9, 2007) — It's now confirmed. The same kind of spider is largely responsible for all the webs. It's the Guatemalan Long-jawed Spider, Tetragantha guatemalensis.

Giant web bungee jumping (November 10, 2007) — The spiders at all the giant webs were doing something strange. They were bungee jumping off the web on lines of silk — and I got it on video.

Jumping spider in an orb web (November 12, 2007) — While studying the giant web at Lake Tawakoni State Park, I caught a jumping spider where it doesn't belong — at the hub of an orb web.